Move on? Really?
Jul. 17th, 2019 06:01 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
nairiporterThere are legitimate fears to be had from America's second class citizens... it's what comes with being a second class citizen.
"Move on" and "move forward" are calls for accepting the status quo until those in the oppressor's seat finally decide that maybe, just maybe, you deserve something other than second class personhood.
When you, as an unoppressed person tell the oppressed to "move on" or "move forward", you are telling them to wait until you are ready to give them what should be theirs automatically.
These people cannot wait forever.
As Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. said, in his Letter From A Birmingham Jail:
"History is the long and tragic story of the fact that privileged groups seldom give up their privileges voluntarily. Individuals may see the moral light and voluntarily give up their unjust posture; but, as Reinhold Niebuhr has reminded us, groups are more immoral than individuals. ... We know through painful experience that freedom is never voluntarily given by the oppressor; it must be demanded by the oppressed. Frankly, I have never yet engaged in a direct-action movement that was "well timed" according to the timetable of those who have not suffered unduly from the disease of segregation. For years now I have heard the word "wait." It rings in the ear of every Negro with a piercing familiarity. This "wait" has almost always meant "never." It has been a tranquilising thalidomide, relieving the emotional stress for a moment, only to give birth to an ill-formed infant of frustration. We must come to see with the distinguished jurist of yesterday that "justice too long delayed is justice denied.""
This is also common victim blaming. People ask the rape victims to move on, forget it, forgive it. Bully victims at the school often get ignored by teachers, they should just move on and forget it. But no, oppression and privilege it is something that CANNOT be moved on from, until it has been addressed and fixed.
The simple fact that some of the US citizens have been effectively reduced to second-class citizens is unacceptable.
"Move on" and "move forward" are calls for accepting the status quo until those in the oppressor's seat finally decide that maybe, just maybe, you deserve something other than second class personhood.
When you, as an unoppressed person tell the oppressed to "move on" or "move forward", you are telling them to wait until you are ready to give them what should be theirs automatically.
These people cannot wait forever.
As Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. said, in his Letter From A Birmingham Jail:
"History is the long and tragic story of the fact that privileged groups seldom give up their privileges voluntarily. Individuals may see the moral light and voluntarily give up their unjust posture; but, as Reinhold Niebuhr has reminded us, groups are more immoral than individuals. ... We know through painful experience that freedom is never voluntarily given by the oppressor; it must be demanded by the oppressed. Frankly, I have never yet engaged in a direct-action movement that was "well timed" according to the timetable of those who have not suffered unduly from the disease of segregation. For years now I have heard the word "wait." It rings in the ear of every Negro with a piercing familiarity. This "wait" has almost always meant "never." It has been a tranquilising thalidomide, relieving the emotional stress for a moment, only to give birth to an ill-formed infant of frustration. We must come to see with the distinguished jurist of yesterday that "justice too long delayed is justice denied.""
This is also common victim blaming. People ask the rape victims to move on, forget it, forgive it. Bully victims at the school often get ignored by teachers, they should just move on and forget it. But no, oppression and privilege it is something that CANNOT be moved on from, until it has been addressed and fixed.
The simple fact that some of the US citizens have been effectively reduced to second-class citizens is unacceptable.
